Hair Update

Molly has dancer's legs. They're sturdy and strong. She's got these ridiculous calves that are completely well-defined and strong. And she's got my feet. A gajillion years ago when I took ballet, the one good thing that anyone ever said to me about my dancing prowess was that I had dancer's feet. They're basically rectangular, so the big toe and the little toe are almost on the same plane. It makes for a nice, stable dancing base and it's the best for toe shoes. Pity those folks with long feet and big toes that are much higher than their little toes--toe shoes are a nightmare. Molly's got my feet. They're adorable and square and they'll make a great base for dancing. I think she'll start with ballet but she'll decide it's too fussy. My bet: in the end she'll go a bit more avant: more Twyla Tharp or Alvin Ailey or Hubbard Street.

Right now she's doing a line dance with the Teletubbies.

We have to file a one-year post placement report for Ethiopia. Hard to believe that we've had Molly for a whole year already. It's amazing how much happened. A year ago today we were on a plane heading for Paris, to spend four days before we went to Addis. Or maybe we were already in Paris, sleeping off jetlag.

So in the service of listing Molly's accomplishments for the Powers that Be in ET, I counted over 30 words that Molly will say independently: from "all done" and "eat" to "sheep." She says "juice" (j00-eece) and "cookie" and "yogurt" (yo-yo). And she pooped in the potty last week. Of course, since then she's had no interest in trying again. Instead, she plays with the fab new Elmo potty seat we got her and says "Elmo poop." Which I'm sure he does, although I've never thought about it before.

Here're a few new pictures of Molly. In the winter and spring, after a few days, her hair straightened out into kinda wispy soft flyaways. But now that it's summer in Wisconsin (read: 100 percent humidity) she's always got this head full of crazy curls. They're still not the tight little curls--they're big fat soft curls that corkscrew out all over her head.

Molly is "hiding."